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The Second Club Thread

Alan said:
Apparently Harrison Afful's new contract with Charlotte includes a role in the scouting team as well as normal duties as a player.

I know player-coaches are a thing, but I've never heard of a player-scout.
Click to expand...
"Hi Harrison. Found any right backs?"

"No, they're all rubbish. Wouldn't even sign any as backup"
 
So glad I used the view the new post function on here before hitting send on my reply....which was the exact same joke as Dan's but saves us all from reading the same thing but with an additional line of

"FFS, ninja'd by Deutsch"
 
Alan said:
Apparently Harrison Afful's new contract with Charlotte includes a role in the scouting team as well as normal duties as a player.

I know player-coaches are a thing, but I've never heard of a player-scout.
Click to expand...
I would say that's a wage work around.

Mainly as scouts tend to work at the same time as players are playing. Be a bit weird to go when there's nobody on the pitch.
 
He's 36 so ideally he's not going to lead the team in touches per 90' again this season...

Possible he just won't be in the squad occasionally when we go through those weird "3 matches this week" stretches MLS throws on the schedule. Play Sunday, scout Wednesday, play Saturday kinda thing.
 
My Scottish team Raith Rovers have just beaten Dundee on pens to reach the final of the Challenge Cup and will play Hamilton Accies in the Final
 
Another win for St Pauli, 1-0 over Kaiserslautern. In good form since the winter break. Six points clear of the bottom three now.
 
sycophantia said:
So what's the feeling from the 'Lotties' for the coming season, confident? Y'all looking forward to the campaign? What's your realistic goals?
Click to expand...

So! As ever in MLS there are a lot of uncertainties but I think the best place to start for now is our projected starting XI and how they fit in MLS' quality bracket. Short version up top, though: We probably overperformed last season by nearly making the playoffs. If we miss out by a couple of points or GD this season, I won't see it as an abject failure. Make the playoffs and it's a resounding success. Win a playoff match and it'll be a massive achievement.

On to the XI:

  • Kristijan Kahlina, GK: Legitimately, he's Jose Sá with an extra rick in him. Good with the ball at his feet, great passing range for a GK, good in 1-on-1 situations, and often makes saves that most other MLS keepers simply can't, but his positioning is absolutely terrible at times and when he makes a fuck up, it's generally so bad that there's no hope of recovery. Based on last season it's hard to call him a bona fide MLS level keeper. He's a good character, though, and very popular with the supporters. We could have done a lot worse.
  • Nathan Byrne, RB: Remember him? Good athlete, solid footballer, and generally sound defensively. Not spectacular in MLS by any stretch but does the basics very well, and often that's enough as a defender in this league.
  • Adilson Malanda, CB: I think we've struck gold here. Absolutely imperious after a short settling-in period when we purchased him off of... Some club in Ligue 2. Comfortable on the ball, brilliant in the air, quick enough to recover when he's out of position... You don't often find CBs in MLS who check all of the boxes, and Adilson is still very young (21 IIRC), but if continues as he started he's immediately in the conversation for best CB in MLS. I'm expecting we'll make a very tidy profit on him in a year or two.
  • Bill Tuiloma, CB: Remains to be seen how he'll fit next to Malanda, who had partnered with the late Walkes for the tail end of last season. Tuiloma's biggest strength is his athleticism and his ability to support his defensive mates when they screw up (which he had ample opportunity to demonstrate in Portland given he was paired with Larrys Mabiala, who is a talented but very mercurial defender). On paper he fits, but Walkes was adored by his teammates and it's impossible to know how his loss will translate to the team, or, indeed, how much extra pressure that puts on Tuiloma to have the same sort of impact. He's been a solid CB in MLS for multiple years now, however, so I'm cautiously optimistic. He's also got a wild record on direct FKs for a CB.
  • Joseph Mora, LB: See my blurb on Byrne. Very, very similar players who don't offer a great deal of output but equally don't tend to get things horrendously wrong. Provides an appropriate amount of width for out buildup and does what he's asked. Baseline for what you'd want out of an MLS fullback.
  • Derrick Jones, CDM: "The Velvet Giant". An old mainstay of US youth teams, he's got the talent to be an extremely high-end holding midfielder, but the effort and mentality haven't always been there (or, truthfully, were not there at all), which saw him slide around clubs for ever-decreasing value until finally landing in Charlotte last year. He's got a brilliant first touch and every physical tool you want out of a DM, the question has always been whether or not he can switch on for 90'. Our manager, Christian Lattanzio, appears to have cracked the code. Our upturn in form over the last half of the season was largely down to playing Derrick as the #6 rather than Brandt Bronico. I can only see it going one of two ways with Derrick; either he continues to crush it and suddenly Charlotte have the best CB-DM-CB triangle in MLS, or he utterly flames out and is not with the team this time next year.
  • Brandt Bronico, CM: In many ways, he's the inverse to DJ above; the talent has been the question, never the work ethic. Spent a few years in Chicago being shunted into just about every position he shouldn't actually play, before going off into the wilderness of USL (our 2nd tier). I was underwhelmed when Charlotte signed him and for the time that Miguel Angel Ramirez was manager, I felt pretty vindicated. Bronico, for all his effort, cannot be the midfield glue for a team. Lattanzio has generally played him as more of an #8 and it has allowed BB to really express himself. He's a leader on the pitch and has a knack for inserting a sense of urgency when the team needs it most. His level of production is not and likely never will be good enough for MLS, but some of the things he brings are very difficult to replace. I expect he has a fight on his hands to keep Nuno Santos from usurping his position in the XI.
  • Yordy Reyna, LW: The definition of a mercurial winger. Will go missing for 85 minutes and then for 5 minutes be utterly, completely undefendable. The best footballer on the team by a mile. One of the best crossers in MLS for the 5 minutes he's any good. Not consistent enough, though, obviously. Has a massive job to do if he doesn't want to be replaced by Kerwin Vargas, who is young and direct and rarely hides from the game, but who is also very much an uncut gem.
  • Karol Swiderski, CAM/CF: An utter bellend of a player. Selfish to a fault and loves to do a Paul Ince impression by absolutely laying into teammates when they don't do what he thinks the should have done. Unfortunately for everyone, he's also our most genuine threat and is capable of some spectacular things (even if it doesn't always look like he's meant to do said spectacular thing). His success this season will likely be dictated by the success of our new striker, who I'll get to in a second. Karol is one who I expect will not be on the team next season; we've already turned down bids from Europe for him so I expect the interest will be there unless he goes way off the boil.
  • Kamil Jozwiak, RW: Terrible signing. Just not a good player by any stretch of the imagination for this level. Offers very little as an outlet, consistently makes bad decisions when attacking, and doesn't have the quality to make the good decisions count. Derby County absolutely fleeced us at $1.5m. Hopefully I'm wrong and he can improve, but he was perhaps the worst DP signing in MLS last season. Andre Shinyashiki is the backup in this position and he's not a great player, but he's MLS quality in a way that I simply don't think Jozwiak is.
  • Enzo Copetti, ST: All up in the air here. Ripped the Argentinian league apart this past year for Racing, had something like 22 goals and a handful of assists. An absolute unit, looks like he'd be up to the physical demands of the Prem, much less MLS. The risk here is that prior to last season he'd done basically nothing at any kind of notable level. We're banking heavily on him continuing the form he showed last year. I'm nervous about him; as I've said here many times, exports to MLS from the Argentinian league have had a habit of being absolutely god-awful. I've also no idea how good of an actual footballer he is. Every chance that he's just a big lump. Time will tell.
Congrats if you read through all of that!
 
Great stuff mate, very interesting.

A question: do MLS clubs own their own players now? Because I remember (and this might be decades out of date by now, I have no idea) that before, the league owned them centrally effectively. So if we wanted to buy your super duper CH, would Charlotte get the money, or Major League Soccer who then divvy it out however they see fit?
 
Alan said:
So! As ever in MLS there are a lot of uncertainties but I think the best place to start for now is our projected starting XI and how they fit in MLS' quality bracket. Short version up top, though: We probably overperformed last season by nearly making the playoffs. If we miss out by a couple of points or GD this season, I won't see it as an abject failure. Make the playoffs and it's a resounding success. Win a playoff match and it'll be a massive achievement.

On to the XI:

  • Kristijan Kahlina, GK: Legitimately, he's Jose Sá with an extra rick in him. Good with the ball at his feet, great passing range for a GK, good in 1-on-1 situations, and often makes saves that most other MLS keepers simply can't, but his positioning is absolutely terrible at times and when he makes a fuck up, it's generally so bad that there's no hope of recovery. Based on last season it's hard to call him a bona fide MLS level keeper. He's a good character, though, and very popular with the supporters. We could have done a lot worse.
  • Nathan Byrne, RB: Remember him? Good athlete, solid footballer, and generally sound defensively. Not spectacular in MLS by any stretch but does the basics very well, and often that's enough as a defender in this league.
  • Adilson Malanda, CB: I think we've struck gold here. Absolutely imperious after a short settling-in period when we purchased him off of... Some club in Ligue 2. Comfortable on the ball, brilliant in the air, quick enough to recover when he's out of position... You don't often find CBs in MLS who check all of the boxes, and Adilson is still very young (21 IIRC), but if continues as he started he's immediately in the conversation for best CB in MLS. I'm expecting we'll make a very tidy profit on him in a year or two.
  • Bill Tuiloma, CB: Remains to be seen how he'll fit next to Malanda, who had partnered with the late Walkes for the tail end of last season. Tuiloma's biggest strength is his athleticism and his ability to support his defensive mates when they screw up (which he had ample opportunity to demonstrate in Portland given he was paired with Larrys Mabiala, who is a talented but very mercurial defender). On paper he fits, but Walkes was adored by his teammates and it's impossible to know how his loss will translate to the team, or, indeed, how much extra pressure that puts on Tuiloma to have the same sort of impact. He's been a solid CB in MLS for multiple years now, however, so I'm cautiously optimistic. He's also got a wild record on direct FKs for a CB.
  • Joseph Mora, LB: See my blurb on Byrne. Very, very similar players who don't offer a great deal of output but equally don't tend to get things horrendously wrong. Provides an appropriate amount of width for out buildup and does what he's asked. Baseline for what you'd want out of an MLS fullback.
  • Derrick Jones, CDM: "The Velvet Giant". An old mainstay of US youth teams, he's got the talent to be an extremely high-end holding midfielder, but the effort and mentality haven't always been there (or, truthfully, were not there at all), which saw him slide around clubs for ever-decreasing value until finally landing in Charlotte last year. He's got a brilliant first touch and every physical tool you want out of a DM, the question has always been whether or not he can switch on for 90'. Our manager, Christian Lattanzio, appears to have cracked the code. Our upturn in form over the last half of the season was largely down to playing Derrick as the #6 rather than Brandt Bronico. I can only see it going one of two ways with Derrick; either he continues to crush it and suddenly Charlotte have the best CB-DM-CB triangle in MLS, or he utterly flames out and is not with the team this time next year.
  • Brandt Bronico, CM: In many ways, he's the inverse to DJ above; the talent has been the question, never the work ethic. Spent a few years in Chicago being shunted into just about every position he shouldn't actually play, before going off into the wilderness of USL (our 2nd tier). I was underwhelmed when Charlotte signed him and for the time that Miguel Angel Ramirez was manager, I felt pretty vindicated. Bronico, for all his effort, cannot be the midfield glue for a team. Lattanzio has generally played him as more of an #8 and it has allowed BB to really express himself. He's a leader on the pitch and has a knack for inserting a sense of urgency when the team needs it most. His level of production is not and likely never will be good enough for MLS, but some of the things he brings are very difficult to replace. I expect he has a fight on his hands to keep Nuno Santos from usurping his position in the XI.
  • Yordy Reyna, LW: The definition of a mercurial winger. Will go missing for 85 minutes and then for 5 minutes be utterly, completely undefendable. The best footballer on the team by a mile. One of the best crossers in MLS for the 5 minutes he's any good. Not consistent enough, though, obviously. Has a massive job to do if he doesn't want to be replaced by Kerwin Vargas, who is young and direct and rarely hides from the game, but who is also very much an uncut gem.
  • Karol Swiderski, CAM/CF: An utter bellend of a player. Selfish to a fault and loves to do a Paul Ince impression by absolutely laying into teammates when they don't do what he thinks the should have done. Unfortunately for everyone, he's also our most genuine threat and is capable of some spectacular things (even if it doesn't always look like he's meant to do said spectacular thing). His success this season will likely be dictated by the success of our new striker, who I'll get to in a second. Karol is one who I expect will not be on the team next season; we've already turned down bids from Europe for him so I expect the interest will be there unless he goes way off the boil.
  • Kamil Jozwiak, RW: Terrible signing. Just not a good player by any stretch of the imagination for this level. Offers very little as an outlet, consistently makes bad decisions when attacking, and doesn't have the quality to make the good decisions count. Derby County absolutely fleeced us at $1.5m. Hopefully I'm wrong and he can improve, but he was perhaps the worst DP signing in MLS last season. Andre Shinyashiki is the backup in this position and he's not a great player, but he's MLS quality in a way that I simply don't think Jozwiak is.
  • Enzo Copetti, ST: All up in the air here. Ripped the Argentinian league apart this past year for Racing, had something like 22 goals and a handful of assists. An absolute unit, looks like he'd be up to the physical demands of the Prem, much less MLS. The risk here is that prior to last season he'd done basically nothing at any kind of notable level. We're banking heavily on him continuing the form he showed last year. I'm nervous about him; as I've said here many times, exports to MLS from the Argentinian league have had a habit of being absolutely god-awful. I've also no idea how good of an actual footballer he is. Every chance that he's just a big lump. Time will tell.
Congrats if you read through all of that!
Click to expand...
Oh god, I'm going to have to watch a game aren't I?
 
Alan said:
So! As ever in MLS there are a lot of uncertainties but I think the best place to start for now is our projected starting XI and how they fit in MLS' quality bracket. Short version up top, though: We probably overperformed last season by nearly making the playoffs. If we miss out by a couple of points or GD this season, I won't see it as an abject failure. Make the playoffs and it's a resounding success. Win a playoff match and it'll be a massive achievement.

On to the XI:

  • Kristijan Kahlina, GK: Legitimately, he's Jose Sá with an extra rick in him. Good with the ball at his feet, great passing range for a GK, good in 1-on-1 situations, and often makes saves that most other MLS keepers simply can't, but his positioning is absolutely terrible at times and when he makes a fuck up, it's generally so bad that there's no hope of recovery. Based on last season it's hard to call him a bona fide MLS level keeper. He's a good character, though, and very popular with the supporters. We could have done a lot worse.
  • Nathan Byrne, RB: Remember him? Good athlete, solid footballer, and generally sound defensively. Not spectacular in MLS by any stretch but does the basics very well, and often that's enough as a defender in this league.
  • Adilson Malanda, CB: I think we've struck gold here. Absolutely imperious after a short settling-in period when we purchased him off of... Some club in Ligue 2. Comfortable on the ball, brilliant in the air, quick enough to recover when he's out of position... You don't often find CBs in MLS who check all of the boxes, and Adilson is still very young (21 IIRC), but if continues as he started he's immediately in the conversation for best CB in MLS. I'm expecting we'll make a very tidy profit on him in a year or two.
  • Bill Tuiloma, CB: Remains to be seen how he'll fit next to Malanda, who had partnered with the late Walkes for the tail end of last season. Tuiloma's biggest strength is his athleticism and his ability to support his defensive mates when they screw up (which he had ample opportunity to demonstrate in Portland given he was paired with Larrys Mabiala, who is a talented but very mercurial defender). On paper he fits, but Walkes was adored by his teammates and it's impossible to know how his loss will translate to the team, or, indeed, how much extra pressure that puts on Tuiloma to have the same sort of impact. He's been a solid CB in MLS for multiple years now, however, so I'm cautiously optimistic. He's also got a wild record on direct FKs for a CB.
  • Joseph Mora, LB: See my blurb on Byrne. Very, very similar players who don't offer a great deal of output but equally don't tend to get things horrendously wrong. Provides an appropriate amount of width for out buildup and does what he's asked. Baseline for what you'd want out of an MLS fullback.
  • Derrick Jones, CDM: "The Velvet Giant". An old mainstay of US youth teams, he's got the talent to be an extremely high-end holding midfielder, but the effort and mentality haven't always been there (or, truthfully, were not there at all), which saw him slide around clubs for ever-decreasing value until finally landing in Charlotte last year. He's got a brilliant first touch and every physical tool you want out of a DM, the question has always been whether or not he can switch on for 90'. Our manager, Christian Lattanzio, appears to have cracked the code. Our upturn in form over the last half of the season was largely down to playing Derrick as the #6 rather than Brandt Bronico. I can only see it going one of two ways with Derrick; either he continues to crush it and suddenly Charlotte have the best CB-DM-CB triangle in MLS, or he utterly flames out and is not with the team this time next year.
  • Brandt Bronico, CM: In many ways, he's the inverse to DJ above; the talent has been the question, never the work ethic. Spent a few years in Chicago being shunted into just about every position he shouldn't actually play, before going off into the wilderness of USL (our 2nd tier). I was underwhelmed when Charlotte signed him and for the time that Miguel Angel Ramirez was manager, I felt pretty vindicated. Bronico, for all his effort, cannot be the midfield glue for a team. Lattanzio has generally played him as more of an #8 and it has allowed BB to really express himself. He's a leader on the pitch and has a knack for inserting a sense of urgency when the team needs it most. His level of production is not and likely never will be good enough for MLS, but some of the things he brings are very difficult to replace. I expect he has a fight on his hands to keep Nuno Santos from usurping his position in the XI.
  • Yordy Reyna, LW: The definition of a mercurial winger. Will go missing for 85 minutes and then for 5 minutes be utterly, completely undefendable. The best footballer on the team by a mile. One of the best crossers in MLS for the 5 minutes he's any good. Not consistent enough, though, obviously. Has a massive job to do if he doesn't want to be replaced by Kerwin Vargas, who is young and direct and rarely hides from the game, but who is also very much an uncut gem.
  • Karol Swiderski, CAM/CF: An utter bellend of a player. Selfish to a fault and loves to do a Paul Ince impression by absolutely laying into teammates when they don't do what he thinks the should have done. Unfortunately for everyone, he's also our most genuine threat and is capable of some spectacular things (even if it doesn't always look like he's meant to do said spectacular thing). His success this season will likely be dictated by the success of our new striker, who I'll get to in a second. Karol is one who I expect will not be on the team next season; we've already turned down bids from Europe for him so I expect the interest will be there unless he goes way off the boil.
  • Kamil Jozwiak, RW: Terrible signing. Just not a good player by any stretch of the imagination for this level. Offers very little as an outlet, consistently makes bad decisions when attacking, and doesn't have the quality to make the good decisions count. Derby County absolutely fleeced us at $1.5m. Hopefully I'm wrong and he can improve, but he was perhaps the worst DP signing in MLS last season. Andre Shinyashiki is the backup in this position and he's not a great player, but he's MLS quality in a way that I simply don't think Jozwiak is.
  • Enzo Copetti, ST: All up in the air here. Ripped the Argentinian league apart this past year for Racing, had something like 22 goals and a handful of assists. An absolute unit, looks like he'd be up to the physical demands of the Prem, much less MLS. The risk here is that prior to last season he'd done basically nothing at any kind of notable level. We're banking heavily on him continuing the form he showed last year. I'm nervous about him; as I've said here many times, exports to MLS from the Argentinian league have had a habit of being absolutely god-awful. I've also no idea how good of an actual footballer he is. Every chance that he's just a big lump. Time will tell.
Congrats if you read through all of that!
Click to expand...
No place for Ashley Westwood?
 
Deutsch Wolf said:
Great stuff mate, very interesting.

A question: do MLS clubs own their own players now? Because I remember (and this might be decades out of date by now, I have no idea) that before, the league owned them centrally effectively. So if we wanted to buy your super duper CH, would Charlotte get the money, or Major League Soccer who then divvy it out however they see fit?
Click to expand...
A percentage goes to the selling club directly and the rest to MLS. How much goes to each party (and especially what MLS does with their share) is, IMO, deliberately difficult to determine. There are so many weird, bespoke rules in place about who can be paid what, and for how long, and how the club's salary cap is actually impacted... It's a mess and way too much for some of our good journos to keep up with, much less a nitwit like me.

In short, selling club gets a majority of the money but not close to all of it, which I guess is fair enough given MLS is not really that far removed from a time when clubs were folding regularly and putting massive pressure on the financial longevity of the league.
 
Sniffer said:
No place for Ashley Westwood?
Click to expand...
He'll be competing with Derrick Jones for the #6, I expect. Don't think he'll be fit for opening day next Saturday so stuck with DJ for the purposes of the breakdown.

Expect he'll be very important for our success over the season, doubly so if DJ regresses.
 
Alan said:
A percentage goes to the selling club directly and the rest to MLS. How much goes to each party (and especially what MLS does with their share) is, IMO, deliberately difficult to determine. There are so many weird, bespoke rules in place about who can be paid what, and for how long, and how the club's salary cap is actually impacted... It's a mess and way too much for some of our good journos to keep up with, much less a nitwit like me.

In short, selling club gets a majority of the money but not close to all of it, which I guess is fair enough given MLS is not really that far removed from a time when clubs were folding regularly and putting massive pressure on the financial longevity of the league.
Click to expand...
I did once try MLS on Football Manager but just the draft melted my tiny, tiny mind so I never tried again!
 
Deutsch Wolf said:
I did once try MLS on Football Manager but just the draft melted my tiny, tiny mind so I never tried again!
Click to expand...
To give you an idea of how wild it is, Charlotte just signed a player for our youth team for $3million, entirely because we can't "legally" drop that money on a senior player just now.

For reference, $3m would be the record senior signing for a few MLS clubs. It's a jungle out here.
 
Alan said:
To give you an idea of how wild it is, Charlotte just signed a player for our youth team for $3million, entirely because we can't "legally" drop that money on a senior player just now.

For reference, $3m would be the record senior signing for a few MLS clubs. It's a jungle out here.
Click to expand...
We got around $2m for Campana by all accounts so that seems a pretty good deal in light of that, he was obviously never going to play here.
 
Tony Towner said:
Where is Ben Bender?
Click to expand...
In my heart!

Think he has a bit more development to do. Expect he'll get some sub appearances ~60' as a chance to stake a claim, but I'm not sure at the moment if Lattanzio views him more as a midfielder or a winger.
 
Sadly everything MLS in the UK has been shifted to Apple TV. We used to have some games on Sky and some on Freesports (now ViaPlay) but it's gone for 2023, lock stock and barrel. Doubt I'll be seeing any of it in that case, I'm not taking out yet another subscription.
 
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